Significant Celebrations
by Kitty Ryan
Summary: Alanna makes a speech, the night Keladry celebrates her ordeal. A slow build: speculative fic for Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN.
1. Speeches

**Significant Celebrations – **_**Speeches**_

K. Ryan, 2010

* * *

"_Lady Alanna," Kel said. "Would you like to come to supper with us? Someone has to keep Neal from making speeches." _Squire, p. 388  
_  
She was happy to give up spirits; she hadn't liked the loose, careless feelings they had given he_r. Lady Knight, p. 62.

* * *

"Speech! A speech!"

Merric, bright and slurred, cups clattering on the table. Cheers from Esmond at his left. Boys and noise. Wine. People. Kel tasted it all, thick on her tongue and sharp at the back of her throat, strange and heady. The world seemed to trace small fires along her skin. The wine was as new as her knighthood, and even less respectable. Still, it did, as Esmond had told Neal gravely, pouring him a measure, _serve_.

Serve what, Kel still wasn't sure. It was best, she thought, to keep very still. Her parents had left the celebrations hours before, and she suspected her sensible self had already joined them.

Yuki met her eyes over the table, her own sparkling even more than usual in her still face, and raised a cup to her lips, swallowing slowly in a way that, Kel noticed, had Neal clearing his throat. As she raised her hand to cover her mouth so she could lick a heavy, purple drop from her face, Neal had to close his eyes.

Kel raised her eyebrows.

"No fan!" Yuki demurred. "Besides, it's your scandalous celebration, and I'm—"

"—incredible," said Neal. Kel had to laugh.

"Speech!"

"Merric, no. Please. Yuki just distracted Neal, don't get him started—" the room spun, though Kel was only moving her mouth. And how her words could feel both light and heavy in there, she could not be sure.

"I," Neal said grandly, "Shall oblige."

"Oh-ho, boy. No, you won't."

A new voice at the table. Alanna, on her feet and grinning, giving Neal a look that was loaded with language Kel did not understand.

"You're not very obliging, former squire," said the Lioness. "No need to start now."

Kel looked at her. She was a good friend, this woman. Words clattered around her head. The strange honestly of hours before, that had made her feel strange and new and clean and right. The look in her eyes, grave and human: _Neal mentioned there were times thought there were times I didn't care. I wanted to tell you...  
_  
"But the crowd!" Neal was nodding toward their year mates. "They demand oratory, bravest lady."

"Save your orations for your intended." The Lioness grinned at Yuki's flush, open and wine-sped. "Oh, if he hasn't asked you yet, it's coming."

"It's only been a week!"

"He's shown that much restraint?"

The world was full of their banter. All her friends. Kel watched them all, drawn to Yuki's fragile fluster and Neal's love for the entire world, which everyone knew would crack and slip away in the next morning. She was drawn to Alanna, who charmed and bullied them both, and by the way her hair seemed to be the candles in the late-night room, the silver it snatching all the other sources of light. The way she moved—too fast, and loudly, even without words. Every gesture spoke the sort of unintentional chorus that years at the Yamani court had smoothed away from the younger girl. The young woman.

Watching Alanna, taking another gulp of the rotgut wine, Kel suddenly _knew_. She knew she knew with everything she had, and what she knew was tied into Alanna's eyes, bright and serious and impossible on her face. _"I wanted to tell you, it was exactly the opposite.."_ She had blushed. Alanna had blushed. Deep and open and right there, in front of Kel.

_It nearly killed me, that I couldn't help you.._.you_, bless you, are real_.

Watching Alanna, Kel knew. Except, the wine would not tell her _what_ she knew, only that she knew _it_, and the world was becoming too blurred around the edges for sense.

"_I'll_ make the speech." Alanna, meeting her eyes, cheerful and steady and not, Kel was sure, tying herself up in knots with her own thoughts. "One Lady Knight to another, and all. Besides, Neal. You might learn something."

The boys cheered. Neal, smirking, had her hoisted onto the table, so this tiny woman stood above them all. She raised her glass. Cleared her throat.

And she _winked_ at Kel in a way that made her stomach bottom out.

* * *

**Note:** Written for the third round of Kel/Alanna at Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN. All usual disclaimers apply


	2. Speechless

**Significant Celebrations - _Speechless

* * *

_**

Standing up was strange. Too strange. Somehow, her insides had sneaked up and now showed through her skin, but it was _thoughts_ she might be bleeding.

Other words touching them, toying with them, almost stroking them: he look in Neal's eyes, whilst everyone else laughed at something to do with punching Quinden—as he said she was more his best friend now than she had been at ten. ("Friendship to those unrelated to me had been rather difficult up until then, for no reason whatsoever. _I_, of course, was entirely lovable. A taste issue, most likely.") – More laughs there, but Neal had held her eyes and nodded, and she bled all over him.

Alanna, on the table, grinning. "Now you have me up here, there isn't much to say. Neal has told me stories, but I think I'd only sanitise them, and I don't think that's the point."

Alanna, on the table, crooked and soft. "I heard about the hazing. About what _you_, Kel, and the motley rest of you did—about the hazing. I wasn't sure whether to cheer or feel uncomfortable, a relic of an older time. In the end, I did both, because both feelings were true ones. And your Lady Knight is the sort who _will_ make you, make the rest of the world, feel uncomfortable sometimes, because she is brave enough to do so." A nod to Neal. Merric's rueful, "Here, here!" Blank looks and reaches for more wine.

Alanna's eyes on Kel's face, brief and full of unreadable things, before another aside to the crowd, another gruff use of awkward-skill. "And if any of you end up being stuffed shirts over it, you'll be hunted down. By me. For _my_ satisfaction, since Kel's more than capable of keeping hers. I'm getting old, now. And bored. Fractious, even. You've been warned."

"Never, Mistress-mine." (_Dear_ Neal.) "You're as fresh as hellsbane on a spring afternoon."

Kel, making a first stand. A gush of thoughts, dizziness. From the table, Alanna was taller. Proper, legend tall, without needing clothes to match. "Please," she said. "Both of you. Shut up."

"Very soon, Lady Knight." Alanna's eyes on her face.

"I've heard all the stories. Seen the edges of some of them. Made a few ventures and impressions of my own." (_You, bless you, are real_.—thoughts, memories. Kel blushed. Even if it were just in her head, she blushed.) "But, if I end up talking to you in ten years, when some of you come together to celebrate surviving that long..." a toast to that, echoes all around. "I will have a better speech," said Alanna. "Full of details. You lot have lived with your friend; I have only just met mine."

Kel swayed.

"So." Her voice on the boys, harsh and cheerful and wicked. Her eyes on Kel's face, grave and questioning, even though all the improbable colour and the younger woman's suddenly blurred, trembling sight.

_I'm not sure I like wine_. A clear thought, there for anyone to read. _I wish I could remember this.  
_  
"So," said the Lioness. "Give me ten years to learn every bit, every detail, and let us do our best to become less legendary to each other and then put me on a table and let me talk for hours. Goddess bless you, Lady Knight."

Cheers, and then Alanna was at the edge, laying her hands in Kel's.

"No, don't—I don't think I—"

"—yes," said Alanna. "You can." And the small woman was in Kel's arms—a warm, jolting flash of brief, full of bones and hair ticking the back of Kel's hand and leather digging into her hip—before being set down. She still kept a grip on Kel's forearms.

"I _think_, now you're Knighted, I'm allowed to invoke the Goddess in your presence without cries of, 'Witch!" Alanna's smile was crooked again. "I didn't witch you, did I?"

"I might have dropped you!" Somehow, that was all Kel found she could say.

"That," said the Lioness, withdrawing slightly and grinning, "_Would_ have been a story."

She pushed, slightly, at the space between Kel's collarbones and the start of her breasts, and Kel sat back down.


	3. Sense: M rated

**Significant Celebrations - Sense

* * *

**

A celebration turned soft and sluggish by three in the morning, friends leaving, alone and in pairs—laughter slipping and fading in the stone of the hallways. Merric and Esmind, still game and singing; Neal's hand on hers, warm and pleased, and Yuki 's fingers on his other arm, a delicate pull that make all of them smile.

"Be good," Kel managed.

Yuki, in Yamani: "I hope he isn't!"

Neal, looking in through the language and wondering at their laughter, tired bewilderment on his face.

"Go on," said Kel. Her words were better now, a little less removed from her voice, with easier echoes. But it still felt strange. "Both of you, go to bed."

Laughter again as they left, spilling out of her warm, and fast. Alanna's hand on her back. "What is it?"

"I love my friends," said Kel. "I...I love my friends." Stronger echoes now. Alanna's hand moved, but not away. Kel felt her skin tighten as fingers shifted up her spine, traced the shape of her skull through her hair. A slow caress. "And, uh, Neal really needs to learn Yamani."

"That's a decision for the Lady Yukimi," the Lioness sounded absent, the energy usually caught in her voice now moving down her arm and into the younger woman's skin. "Every woman should have their secrets."

Not enough air to breathe; too much air to swallow. "Everyone." She breathed.

Alanna snorted. "Well, yes," she said. Brief, full pressure of her palm, fingers curling around the back of her neck. "I was _alluding_. Secrets being a big part of my early life."

Kel shifted in her chair to look at her, skin aching—arching and unused to callous, there, in the spot that was not quite her neck or back, shoulder or throat. She was soft, there. And Alanna was as flushed as she felt, coppery hair crackling around her face, the silver that showed through dyed by remaining candlelight.

_She blushed when she spoke to me._ The thought tingled. "I need to go to bed," she said.

A knowing smile. "Can you stand?"

"I don't know."

Alanna's hand moved, taking Kel's own, the other braced beneath her elbow. "Only one way to find out," she said. Kel stood. Alanna braced. The world tilted, shifting and lengthening until Alanna's head barely reached her chest.

"Come on," said the Lioness.

"You're—"

"—I'm assisting." The smile turned inward for a second, eyes darkening. "Don't say you're too big. I did this often enough with Raoul. And that was a lot less fun."

So much to think about, in those words. All slipping away from her. Kel twisted her hands, caught Alanna's properly in hers. They fit there well. She could feel a touch of the other woman on every part of her, and that was making her shiver, now. The world spun less but was all _knowing_, again. Knowledge of something she could not quite taste or touch or see. Alanna smiled at her, feeling the pressure. "Bless you," she said.

The two of them began to walk. Alanna leading backwards, keeping her hands trapped. Kel laughed. "Oh no," she said. "I think I've been blessed enough already. And tomorrow, I—"

"Tomorrow," Alanna said. "Is then. At risk of sounding profound. Or drunk."

Their own turn to echo in hallways. "You're not drunk!"

"More than you know."

"You said beautiful things." Her own doorway looming, familiar-strange. "But you're...you're not an old relic."

Alanna's laughter now, too, sharp and soft all at once. She pulled one hand away, the sudden loss of it strange enough to bring a sound up out of Kel. A sound she had never made, to go with the shiveriness. She had a sweetheart, fighting on the border. Cleon, his hair richer than this woman's, though not as bright.  
_  
( "Have I told you how much I_ love_ tall women?")_

Alanna's hand cupping her cheek, tendons in her wrist taut with the reaching for it. All voices faded from Kel's mind.

"An old legend." Alanna's voice slightly hoarse, now. Must have been all the talking. "Practically the same thing."

"No, you're—" words snagged in her throat, and she found her eyes were closed, lashes brushing Alanna's fingertips. "You weren't _there_—or, I _thought_ you weren't there, and now you're—"

"Hush."

"—Touching me."

The air was swelling. She was swelling. Lights behind her eyelids and a slow, strange lean into the Lioness's hand. Kel was tightly loose, somehow, until a pulse deep in her belly ripped through both feelings at once.

Her eyes opened. Alanna's were wide, her lip caught briefly between her teeth, coming away wet in the light from wall sconces.

"You meant it all? Everything?"

Alanna's turn to swallow. "The bit about making others uncomfortable..."

"Every last, uh, every _bit_. Every detail."

"Lady Knight," said Alanna. "I meant every—"

Alanna's gasp felt strange in Kel's mouth, but the heat was of it was what she knew she did not know. Was what she needed, this feeling of lips opening under her own and the sudden, wicked curl of Alanna's tongue around hers. No more words, but surprise turning liquid and ardent, Alanna's hands sliding into her hair and holding her face. Hard. Ardent. Sharp sweetness of teeth on her lower lip. An easy shift to reciprocate, another gasp swallowed down, and the delight of feeling her friend swell through her. No words save knowing, and learning, and _yes.  
_  
Touching, both of them. Alanna's hands freeing from her hair and running over skin and tunic down to her breasts, so Kel was aware of her own skin straining, and Alanna's reaching, and the three impossible, ridiculous layers between the two. This fumbled touch, and her nipples had tightened, she was all the beat her body set, flood held back through skin. Three layers. Her own hands on this body, Alanna shuddering into her mouth.

One kiss, and Kel's hand curled around her hip, Alanna's shirt untucked and spilling, as long fingers slipped against new skin.

No air to breathe. Too much to swallow. The pressure of a waistband against her fingers made her pull away, though neither woman's eyes could leave the other's face.

No more words.


End file.
